Gareth Ashley, Associate, Arup Group

Gareth Ashley has worked in the IT industry for twenty years, and has been with Arup for the last seven. During this time he has worked on a number of high-profile buildings, focusing on ICT and Building Automation System (BAS) integration. Ashley will share the technological and practical challenges faced by designers when bringing together information from disparate systems in order to provide integrated and sustainable buildings that work. Arup is a global firm of more than 10,000 designers, engineers, planners and business consultants in more than 90 offices in 37 countries – with over 10,000 projects running concurrently at any one time.

Jonn Axsen, Graduate Researcher, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Research Center, UC Davis

Jonn Axsen is a graduate researcher in the Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Technology and Policy at UC Davis, and has undergraduate and Master’s degrees from Simon Fraser University. Axsen is currently exploring the early market for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), including the opportunities and constraints of existing infrastructure, consumer perceptions of electric-drive technology, and potential demand for specific PHEV designs. Axsen is also investigating the "diffusion" of environmentally-friendly vehicle technologies, including the "neighbor effect."

Gary Baldwin, Director of Special Projects for Energy and the Environment, CITRIS, UC Berkeley

Dr. Gary L. Baldwin received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966, 1967, and 1970, respectively. Dr. Baldwin has extensive experience in the corporate arena, holding technical and management positions at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, where his research involved microwave and optical devices. A former Acting Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley, Dr. Baldwin has served at U.C. Berkeley as the Executive Director of the Gigascale Silicon Research Center (1999-2003), the Executive Director of CITRIS (2003-2008), and currently serves as the CITRIS Director of Special Projects in Energy and the Environment.

Dave Barthmuss, Manager of Public Policy, Environment & Energy, GM

Dave Barthmuss is the Group Manager for General Motors’ Western Region, Environment & Energy Communications team. Dave has served in various communications functions at GM for nearly 20 years, covering several product marketing, sales, and issues management communications positions before assuming his current role in Thousand Oaks, California. As head of communications for the automaker’s largest region in the United States, Dave is responsible for a wide variety of public relations assignments, including engaging GM and its brands with key stakeholder groups to help communicate the company’s environmental, technology and policy initiatives.

Tom Baumann, CEO, ClimateCheck

Tom Baumann is co-founder and CEO of ClimateCHECK. He has 10 years of experience working with climate change and clean technologies. Tom is also co-founder of the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute and serves as Director of Professional Programs. The Institute is a non-profit global GHG training and professional organization, working with the World Resources Institute, the Carbon Disclosure Project, Point Carbon, World Bank, UNFCCC and US GHG programs in order to support more qualified GHG professionals. Tom is a significant contributor to the development of GHG standards and systems for both voluntary and regulated markets. He is the main author of the ISO 14064 International Standard for GHG Offset Projects. Prior to ClimateCHECK, Tom lead the North American Climate Change operations of DNV, the leading global GHG verification company (with approximately 40% of the market). Prior to DNV, Tom worked with a $1.2B public clean tech fund with more than 140 clean technology projects, in which he managed the GHG measurement, verification, and training. Tom has degrees in environmental economics and environmental engineering. Tom is a professional engineer and he serves on various advisory committees including the IEEE Climate Change Technology Task Force, Corporate Carbon Disclosure Standards Board, the GHG Protocol Product/Supply Chain Working Group, and ISO 14064, 14065, and 14066.

Rachelle Chong, Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission

Rachelle Chong is the Commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Previously, she was appointed by President Clinton to the Federal Communications Commission in May 1994. Chong is known for her keen personal interest in advanced information and communications technology. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley in Political Science and Journalism, and received her law degree from Hastings College of the Law. Chong launched her communications law career at a Washington D.C. law firm in 1984, and later joined the international law firm of Graham & James in 1987 in San Francisco. In 1992, she became a partner of the law firm and the head of its Regulatory Department. Her practice before the CPUC focused on state regulatory matters on behalf of telecommunications companies, especially cellular and paging companies.

Jud Cooley, Senior Director, Sun Modular Datacenter, Sun Microsystems

Senior Director of Engineering for the Sun Modular Datacenter also known as "Project Blackbox" from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Jud also plays a coordinating role amongst the platform development teams at Sun on energy initiatives. Prior assignments at Sun include Director of Central Engineering, Director of the Physical Sciences Lab in the CTO organization, and various roles in developing Sun's Enterprise class server products. Prior to Sun, Jud worked at Cray Research, Floating Point Systems, Celerity Computing, and NCR Corporation in various capacities developing hardware, firmware, and IO protocols. Jud has a BSEE from Michigan State University, and an MSEE from MIT. Jud leads the Green Grid's Container Assessment Task Force.

Thomas DeFanti, Senior Research Scientist, Calit2, UC San Diego

Thomas DeFanti is a Senior Research Scientist in the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). Previously, he co-founded the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. DeFanti is also a co-principal investigator of the NSF OptIPuter joint project of Calit2 and UIC. An internationally recognized expert in computer graphics since the early 1970s, Striving for more than a decade to connect high-resolution visualization and virtual reality devices over long distances, DeFanti is a founding member of GLIF, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, a global group that manages international switched wavelength networks for research and education. He has also been active in the ACM SIGGRAPH organization and in the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing (SC) conferences.

Anthony Eggert, Science and Technology Advisor to Chairman Nichols

Anthony is a researcher within the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (STEPS) program at the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California at Davis focused on studying the innovation dynamics of a transition to non-petroleum fuels. Previously, Anthony was the Associate Research Director of the interdisciplinary Hydrogen Pathways research program focused on the technical, economic, environmental, business, and policy issues associated with bringing hydrogen to the transportation market.

Stephen Harper, Global Director, Environmental and Energy Policy, Intel

Stephen Harper is Global Director of Environment and Energy Policy for the Intel Corporation. In that capacity, he has chaired many high-tech industry environmental groups and coalitions. He currently serves as Chairman of the International Climate Change Partnership (ICCP). Prior to coming to Intel he directed Amoco Petroleum’s regulatory services group and was a Senior Policy Analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Before the EPA, Harper was a Vice President in the environmental policy consulting firm, ICF Consulting. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MPA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.

Joseph Heinzmann, Director of Business Development, Fuel Cell Energy

Joseph Heinzmann is Director of Business Development at Fuel Cell Energy. He has a dual degree in Marine and Mechanical Engineering from the California Maritime Academy. His practical expertise encompasses onsite-distributed generation, generator controls and protection, automated control systems and onsite generation project economics. At Fuel Cell Energy, Heinzmann is responsible for working with both end customers and the company’s distributors to develop economically justified solutions that promote the use of fuel cells in the commercial marketplace. Additionally, Heinzmann works within the regulatory arena to develop sound policy that benefits all Californians with ultra clean, efficient and reliable power.

David Hsieh, Vice President of Marketing, Emerging Technologies, Cisco

David Hsieh is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in building and marketing software and services. At Cisco he has marketing responsibility for Cisco's Emerging Technologies -- innovative new businesses created from an internal venture model. Prior to Cisco, Hsieh was a co-founder of FaceTime Communications, a leader in instant messaging solutions for large enterprises. He also served as an VP of Products at WebEx, entrepreneur-in-residence at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Vice President of Product Marketing at Sybase and Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development at LBMS. Hsieh is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Scott Lang, President and CEO, Silver Spring Networks

Scott Lang is President and CEO of Silver Spring Networks, where he is evangelizing the vision of Smart Energy Networks to utility CEOs around the world. Prior to joining Silver Spring Networks, Lang was an executive at Perot Systems, starting with the company at its founding and developing it to become a leading systems integrator with annual revenues over $2 billion with more than 20,000 employees globally. In his last role with Perot Systems, Lang led the company’s Strategic Markets Group, which served the energy, communications and media, travel and transportation industries. Earlier, Lang served in various systems engineering and managerial positions at Electronic Data Systems, and he holds an Executive MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Patricia Lawicki, SVP and Chief Information Officer, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Pat Lawicki joined Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 2005 and is currently the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. She leads a team of more than 1,400 employees and oversees all aspects of information technology (IT) at the company including application development, infrastructure, architecture, security and compliance, and program management.

Rich Lechner, VP, Energy & Environment, IBM

Rich Lechner is IBM’s Vice President, Energy & Environment, and leads the company’s efforts in helping clients address the issues and opportunities around energy, the environment, and sustainability. Previously, he was vice president for Enterprise Systems addressing IBM’s large enterprise customer base and market opportunity by bringing to market a unified set of systems, software and services designed to optimize large-scale IT infrastructures. Lechner has held a number of other senior leadership positions at IBM across the hardware, software, and services organizations including: IT Optimization, Storage Systems, Mainframes, Software Strategy, and Systems Management. Lechner spent 10 years as a programmer for IBM and began his career as a micro-code programmer in the Financial Services Industry.

Jim Meacham, Director of Advanced Energy Systems, CTG Energetics, Inc.

Jim Meacham is Director of Advanced Energy Systems at CTG Energetics. He has diverse experience and training in both the electrical and mechanical engineering fields focusing on the delivery of environmentally preferred solutions for the built environment. He has more than 8 years of experience in the design, modeling, implementation, optimization, and verification of complex energy systems including industrial process automation, distributed generation systems with combined heat and power, and renewables for commercial, institutional, and residential buildings.Jim has been with CTG Energetics since 2005. Prior to joining CTG, he was a commissioning engineer with Siemens Energy and Automation and a high school math teacher.

Sunne McPeak, President and CEO, California Emerging Technology Fund

Sunne Wright McPeak is the President and CEO of the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the deployment of broadband technology and closing the Digital Divide. For 3 years prior, McPeak served as Secretary of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, where she oversaw the largest state Agency, including Caltrans, DMV, CHP, Housing, several business regulatory departments, and programs for tourism, film, trade and small business. She was responsible for more than 42,000 employees and a budget in excess of $11 billion. Under McPeak's leadership,performance in all departments improved significantly cutting average wait times at the DMV from over an hour to 21 minutes, reducing by two-thirds the time to issue real estate licenses, and generating more than $180 million in savings.

Michael R. Peevey, President , California Public Utilities Commission (PUC)

Michael R. Peevey was appointed President of the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) by Governor Gray Davis on December 31, 2002. Originally appointed to the PUC by Governor Davis in March 2002, his term expires December 31, 2008. As President of the PUC, Mr. Peevey is committed to protecting the public interest by promoting consumer needs, while challenging utilities to embrace new technologies and provide safe, high-quality services.

Dan Pellissier, Cal/EPA Deputy Secretary for Energy Policy Coordination

Dan Pellissier, Cal/EPA Deputy Secretary for Energy Policy Coordination, is a public affairs professional with more than 20 years of legislative, regulatory and media relations experience in both the public and private sectors. As Deputy Secretary for Energy Policy Coordination, Dan is responsible for developing and coordinating energy policy with environmental groups, the business community and other state agencies. Key responsibilities include regulatory measures that would achieve CO2 emissions reductions from the electricity sector, transportation fuels, goods movement policies, the cement industry and market based compliance strategies.

Will Recker, Institute for Transportation Studies, UC Irvine

Will Recker is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of California, Irvine and a member of the university’s Institute for Transportation Studies. His research interests and publications have focused on activity-based modeling, travel demand modeling, traffic simulation and control, traffic safety analysis, and applied mechanics.

Steve Relyea, Vice Chancellor, Business Affairs, UC San Diego

Steve Relyea is Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs at the University of California, San Diego. He serves as the chief business officer of a campus with an annual operating budget of $2.5 billion. Relyea oversees financial services, human resources, physical plant, purchasing, administrative computing, telecommunications, housing, food services, police, bookstores, health and safety, and other campus administrative functions. He has also led UC San Diego’s overall adoption of sustainability and energy-efficiency technologies, and the campus is today considered one of the most advanced ‘green’ campuses in the nation. Before his appointment to UCSD in 1986, Relyea worked at the University of California Irvine in a variety of positions, including associate dean for planning and administration of the College of Medicine.

Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer, CANARIE Inc.

Bill St. Arnaud is Chief Research Officer for Canada’s Advanced Network, CANARIE. There, he has been responsible for the coordination and implementation of Canada's next generation optical Internet initiative called CA*net 4. St. Arnaud is involved with a Green IT broadband and cyber-infrastructure initiative to build a "zero-carbon" next-generation Internet in order to help reduce global warming by reducing CO2 emissions at universities and society in general. As part of this initiative one project is to encourage the use of carbon rewards rather than using carbon taxes to encourage consumer to reduce their carbon footprint through the provision of free fiber to the home and other free Internet services and applications. Previously Bill St. Arnaud was the President and founder of a network and software engineering firm called TSA ProForma Inc.

Allan Schurr, Vice President, Strategy & Development, IBM Global Energy & Utilities

Allan Schurr is the Vice President, Energy & Utilities, for IBM, and is responsible for innovative and transformational offerings in customer management, advanced metering infrastructure, work & asset management, and distributed energy that integrate the breadth of IBM hardware, software, and service offerings. The Colorado-based Schurr is also spearheading a global team to accelerate the development of an intelligent utility network and the integration of renewable energy sources and distributed energy assets. Previously, Schurr was the VP of Integrated Solutions for Itron Inc, a provider of utility metering, data collection, and software. His undergraduate degree was from UC Davis in mechanical engineering, and his MBA from St. Mary’s College.

Beth Shiroishi, Executive Director, Citizenship and Sustainability, AT&T

Beth Shiroishi is Executive Director, Citizenship and Sustainability for AT&T. In this role, she has responsibility for the company's focus on citizenship and sustainability, including communication of the company's positions and initiatives, stakeholder relationships, and structural governance internal to the company. Beth joined AT&T as part of BellSouth in 1998 and has held jobs in various areas including pricing, wholesale product management, interconnection agr

Horst Simon, Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Horst Simon is Associate Laboratory Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for Computing Sciences and the Division Director for the Computational Research Division and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. His research interests are in the development of sparse matrix algorithms, algorithms for large-scale eigenvalue problems, and domain decomposition algorithms. His recursive spectral bisection algorithm is a breakthrough in parallel algorithms, honored with the 1988 Gordon Bell Prize. He has served as a senior manager for Silicon Graphics, the Computer Sciences Corporation, Boeing Computer Services, and has been a member of the faculty at the State University of New York. Simon is also one of four editors of the twice-yearly “TOP500” list of the world’s most powerful computing systems.

Larry Smarr, Director, Calit2

Larry Smarr is Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, a partnership of UC San Diego and UC Irvine. He also holds an endowed chair in the Computer Science and Engineering department of UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. Prior to joining the UCSD faculty in 2000, Smarr was the founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he is a widely respected pioneer in supercomputing, grid computing and the Internet. Smarr received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Ron Tessitore, Vice President of Advanced Applications Platforms, Qualcomm

Ron is Vice President of Advanced Application Platforms at Qualcomm. His responsibilities include the development of ultra low power high performance microprocessors, advanced systems on chip for Smart phones and mobile computing, system design and modeling, and electronic design automation. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Ron was Vice President of Development at IBM Microelectronics where he established and led several semiconductor products including; the PowerPC Embedded Processors; PowerNP Network Processors, and high speed Switch Fabrics. He has more than 25 years of experience in leading and designing complex chips, circuits, and software enablement. Ron has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from New York Institute of Technology.

Jim VanderPas, General Manager, NE Region, UTC Power/UTC Fuel Cells

Jim VanderPas is General Manager for the Northeast Region for UTC Power/UTC Fuel Cells. UTC Power is a division of United Technologies. UTC Power's combined cooling, heating and power solutions, such as the super-clean and ultra-efficient PureComfort® system, can be almost three times more energy efficient than the electrical grid. VanderPas is responsible for ‘mission critical’ business development of UTC Power's alternative energy solutions to reduce customers’ energy bills, lower emissions, and help improvements pay for themselves by qualifying for federal and local incentives.

Wolfgang Wagener, Director, Connected Urban Development Program, Cisco Systems

Wolfgang Wagener is Director of Connected Urban Development Programs for Cisco Systems, as well as head of global real estate and construction solutions at the company. His team is responsible for bringing Internet technology and solutions to the real estate and building industry. He is a widely respected expert on improving the environmental and business performance of private and public sector organizations through urban design and development solutions. Prior to joining Cisco in 1999, Wagener founded a global design, planning and strategic consulting firm and was a visiting professor of architecture and planning at UCLA and USC. His research projects for the EU and American organizations focused on sustainable building design and urban development, and the impact of Internet business and technology solutions on workplace and real estate strategies. Wagener received a Ph.D. in Architecture from the West German Institute of Technology.

Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar, Google and Co-Chair, Climate Savers Computing Initiative

Bill Weihl is Green Energy Czar at Google, where he leads efforts in energy efficiency and renewable energy, and also manages the company's greenhouse-gas footprint. He spearheaded Google's drive to become carbon neutral, helped found the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, and helped create the REC initiative to develop renewable energy cheaper than coal. He has extensive business and technical experience in high-tech, including ten years as a professor of Computer Science at MIT, five years as a research scientist at Digital's Systems Research Center, and five years as Chief Architect and then CTO of Akamai Technologies.

Jim Young, Founder and CEO, Realcom

Jim Young is the Co-Founder and Producer of Realcomm, the world’s leading conference on technology, business solutions, the Internet and building automation for the commercial real estate industry. With over 13 years’ experience in real estate and technology, Young has been involved in some of the most important projects in the industry. He has spoken to over 100,000 professionals on the topic and has authored more than 150 articles on the subject of technology, the Internet, business solutions and building automation for commercial real estate.